


we walk through the fire

by minnabird



Series: fate, i found a place for us [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Double Agents, First Order Politics (Star Wars), Gen, Podfic Welcome, Post-Canon, Post-Episode: s04e15-16 Family Reunion – and Farewell, The Dark Side of the Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:07:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21578065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minnabird/pseuds/minnabird
Summary: After everything, Thrawn and Ezra join the First Order with the intention of bringing it down from the inside.Some days it's harder than others. A meeting, on one of those days.(In which: Thrawn is an admiral again; Ezra is a Knight of Ren; and the enemy of your enemy might just be your friend).
Relationships: Ezra Bridger & Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo
Series: fate, i found a place for us [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1555858
Comments: 4
Kudos: 60





	we walk through the fire

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on an AU @coasterchild on Twitter came up with: [thread here.](https://twitter.com/coasterchild/status/1199390109637857280?s=20) I just had to write something.

“I was beginning to think you wouldn’t show up,” the masked figure growled. He was a black shape against the gentler dark of the sky, hunched on a balcony where no one would bother him.

“And when have I ever let you down, old friend?” Thrawn set a slender flute of wine beside the man’s elbow but kept his distance. Out of eyeshot, should someone below look up.

“Do you want them chronologically or by theme?” The man moved back from the rail and removed his mask — really more of a helmet, menacing and practical. Below was a face that still startled Thrawn in its youthfulness. His dark hair was just long enough to hang in a tuft over his forehead, and even the scar high on one cheekbone couldn’t counteract the roundness of his eyes and chin.

Thrawn clicked his tongue. “Pettiness, Mar? I thought we were here to do business.” With the helmet off, the name  _ Mar _ felt wrong on his tongue, though the man across from him hadn’t gone by the name Ezra Bridger in several years.

“Let’s do business, then.” Mar pulled a device from his pocket and tossed it onto the railing. There was a slight buzz as the privacy shield activated. He swiped the wine flute from beside it and took a long sip, eyes not quite meeting Thrawn’s.

He favored his left leg. He tried to hide it by staying in one place, but there was clearly an injury. Not new; healing. Lack of full trust wasn’t unusual between them, even after years of working together, but usually if Mar was feeling snappish, he used eye contact and body language as a weapon, throwing all of his considerable will behind it. The light was low, but… Thrawn narrowed his eyes and reached out for Mar’s chin.

Mar slapped his hand aside and had Thrawn shoved up against the door in an instant. Not with a Force-aided shove, either, but his hand on Thrawn’s throat. Thrawn peered down his nose, and got what he had wanted: a close look at Jaden Mar’s face. His suspicions were confirmed. Those eyes were the bright, roiling color of fire, not the blue Thrawn was accustomed to. The eyes of a man fallen to the Dark Side.

“Is today’s business turning me in? Killing me?” Thrawn said, his voice cool silk.

“No,” Mar said. His voice was as ragged as if he’d just been shouting. After a moment, he backed up a step, then slowly let Thrawn down. He ran a hand through his hair, agitated, and turned away. “No.” He hugged himself. “The last mission went…about as badly as it could go.”

Thrawn kept his voice calm. “Tell me what happened.”

“Snoke, he… He’s been wanting me to prove myself. Prove I’m a good Knight. When I got myself sent on that Yorian mission, he made sure the Supreme Leader thought I might be up to something.”

Alarm prickled the back of Thrawn’s neck. Their loyalty had to be unquestioned: more difficult for a Force user than for a grand admiral. “And?” he said.

“Sloane sent Armitage Hux after me. That kid and his baby troopers.”

“Not much of a threat,” Thrawn observed.

“I don’t know if she knows…it’s better if she thought there was nothing for them to find and meant it as a training exercise. If she knew how it would play out, then we’re in trouble.”

Thrawn swallowed his impatience. “Perhaps if you would tell me, then I could provide some insight.”

He could see Mar’s fist at his side: clenching, relaxing, clenching again as if he were imagining he tightened it on someone’s throat. The man took a deep breath. “I was careless. They caught me, two of the...troopers. I had to make them forget.”

The last sentence hung in the air like breath in the cold. Mar had uttered it so softly, but Thrawn could pick out so many emotions in those few syllables. Horror. Justification. Acceptance. Despair.  _ Ah. _ The Force users he had seen use the Dark Side had access to so many more powers than Thrawn had seen the Jedi use: the ability not only to touch a mind, to nudge it, but to twist it. The Emperor himself had boasted of such an ability.

“That was the moment, I take it,” Thrawn said. “Does your master know what occurred? Or did you think, at least, to cover up the reason for your…change of heart?”

“I didn’t need to,” Mar said, and there was grief and fury raw in his voice. “I was too late. The Yorian outpost is gone.”

“A shame,” Thrawn said. He meant it. The Yorian outpost, given the right help, might have been able to cut First Order forces off from a valuable supply lane. It might have been another way to chip at the monster Sloane and Snoke were building, to dampen the spark of fire before it could set the entire galaxy ablaze.

He couldn’t join in Mar’s heartbreak, but they were allies in this, at least.

“Let me give you something new to focus on,” Thrawn said. “If we play our hand right, you’ll have a long journey on which to contemplate this event.” It was the only mercy he could give Mar. He would need him for the fight ahead.

Mar turned to him at last, looking like the greedy street rat he once was. The eyes were still that unsettling color, but there was a painful hope behind them. “Just tell me where to go.”


End file.
